NOW AVAILABLE - LAUNCHED CHRISTMAS EVE 2013!!!Fish This! An Alaskan Story by Andrew Cremata • $15.95 - ORDER NOW!NEW IN SUMMER 2013!"SKAGWAY - CITY OF THE NEW CENTURY" 35 years of historical features compiled and edited by Jeff Brady$49.95 hardbound, $24.95 paperboundTO ORDER CALL 907-983-3354

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by Catherine Holder Spude

With Illustrations by the Author, 220 pages, paper

$16.95 retail in US, $18.50 in Canada

first published in 2007 - a few copies still left

The eight additional titles below have been produced by LYNN CANAL PUBLISHING, our in-house small press here in Skagway, Alaska. We hope you enjoy these excerpts from our books. If you are interested in ordering any of these titles, please scroll to the bottom of the page and phone the order line at our independent bookstore, SKAGUAY NEWS DEPOT and BOOKS.

If you represent a bookstore or other outlet interested in carrying any of these Lynn Canal Publishing titles, please e-mail us skagnews@aptalaska.netfor more information.

President Harding Visits SkagwayThe Walker and Blanchard gardens became a center of national attention in 1923, when President Warren Harding visited Alaska. Harding had originally planned to bypass Skagway, but a last-minute reconsideration  possibly of an invitation tendered him by Harriet Pullen  sent his naval entourage up the Lynn Canal. When he and his entourage arrived on the morning of July 11, gardens were a significant part of the Presidential partys agenda. The party first headed up to the landscaped, flower-bedecked Pullen House, where the President gave a speech to the assembled crowd. Afterwards, the party toured the Blanchard garden, after which the First Lady visited the Walker garden as well. She was given several bouquets, one with a dahlia nearly a foot in diameter, before heading back to the waiting ship.70

To capitalize on the increasing tourist trade, local jack-of-all-trades Martin Itjen began operating a tour bus in the mid-1920s. He modified a Ford body into a small bus he called the Skagway Street-Car, and until World War II gave tourists the most complete, and certainly the most entertaining way to tour the old gold rush town. Itjen was a character to which tourists took an instant liking, and his tour was a skillful blend of description, local history and personal anecdotes.

Gardens were an important part of his tour. Itjen took tourists to the Blanchard and Walker gardens, but also to the Hannan, Baker, Suffecool, McCann and Talbot gardens. He doubtless showed them many more in his meandering around the city. Many considered him the best tour guide in Alaska, an honor which gave added luster to the town and its many points of interest.71

with contemporary color photos of award-winning Skagway gardens by Dimitra Lavrakas, and historic photos from the Skagway Museum and other collections in Alaska and the Yukon.

A project of the Skagway Garden Club  half of all proceeds from sale of this book benefit SGC projects like the Commuity Garden

$14. 95 paper, with French flap, 96 pages

A suspicious circumstance was reported in a resident's yard. The center of a wood pile was found hollowed out. Officer was unable to tell if the center had been stolen, or if the wood had merely been piled high to build a fort. It was odd that it could have been done during the day or night without anyone seeing or hearing it. The pile is not particularly stable enough to hold a large person. - November 12, 1993

Police heard a very loud dog screaming in pain and traced the noise to its source: two dogs "hopelessly stuck together while attempting the wild thing." Police waited till they were done. The female was tied to a rope, and the male was impounded. he was later released to a Canadian citizen after the impound, room and board fees were collected. - April 25, 1992

Police received a call from the Skagway Inn in reference to disposing of some type of "hazardous material." Upon arrival, officers disposed of leftover chocolate pie with whipped cream and coffee. While there, officers received a call that four juveniles had been jumping off the roof of the Library on State Street and were heading south toward the Inn. Police ran out and confronted the juveniles, who explained they were just having fun. - December 5, 1992

A man was contacted on Third near Broadway after he was reported going from business to business asking for money. The man said he had worked undercover for President Reagan and we should do all we can to help the president. - August 4, 1987

You didn't have to look at the community calendar to realize that Wednesday, Sept. 7 was Missy Meister's birthday - her weird present from practical joker Scott Logan took care of that. A 1,500-pound bull moose propped on top of Meister's blue Chevy Bel-Air attracted scores of Skagway residents to her driveway. The bloated beast - which apparently had drowned in Long Bay - attracted more people than flies, many of them carrying hunting rifles to pose with the moose for trophy photos. A tour bus even took a detour to give visitors a glimpse - and maybe a whiff - of Meister's putrid present. - "Bloatwinkle the Moose" Becomes Birthday Present, September, 1988

Like a freshly hatched bumblebee, Skagway was full grown very young in life, and the town, less than a year old, was full of buzz and bumble and a lot of other things when the Stroller landed there in the early spring of the year 1898. During the next several months Soapy Smith and the Stroller held services in Skagway, each in his own separate and distinct manner. Soapy operated with three shells and a small pea and used automatic artillery, while the Stroller conducted a mild-mannered newspaper in which he pointed out the rewards of upright living and urged his readers always to put a squirt of lemon in it. Soapy worked on a cash basis while the Stroller extended credit, some of which is still extended. -The Stroller Comes North

It was a busy block; sometimes too busy. There was the night a man was killed in the Klondike Saloon and the stranger who did the shooting fled to the street, pursued by a crowd of enraged friends of the deceased. Five shots were fired at him just as he passed the printing office, but none of them made connections with their target. Two struck the sidewalk and three penetrated the newspaper building in which the Stroller was asleep. And while none of the bullets found their way to his pallet under the press, the next morning the Stroller took the precaution of securing several sheets of boiler iron with which to surround his boudoir. - Skagway Newspaper Days

In Dawson, the Stroller frequently visited the police court in search of news. In one case he remembers it was charged that a dog had stolen a whole ham from a cache twelve feet high. The owner of the dog, who operated a restaurant in town, claimed that it was not possible for his dog to have climbed into the cache, but the owner of the ham swore that the dog, in 50-below weather, blew its breath on one of the posts of the cache, forming steps by which it climbed up and grabbed the ham. Moreover, said the erstwhile owner of the ham, although the dog chewed all the meat off the bone, he believed the ham bone was still in possession of the restaurant owner. He asked to be permitted to subpoena it as evidence. The magistrate took that under advisement. The Stroller knew, however, that the statement was true; he had eaten soup made from that identical ham bone dozens of times. - Northland Memories

Casey filed for a seat on the aldermanic board, having been attracted to that position by the fact that the members had voted themselves salaries of $300 a month, and he threw himself into the campaign. He faced and uphill battle because his principal opponent in the election campaign was a saloon owner whose platform consisted of but two planks: 1. Free whiskey. 2. Plenty of it. - Casey Moran

"When I opened my eyes, I was looking at the door and my eyes felt kind of fuzzy - sort of out of focus. At least I thought that's what it was! John whispered to me, 'What are you looking at?' and I said, 'I don't know. What is that?' and he answered back, 'I don't know either, but I've been watching it for two hours!' I mean that's quite a statement from a skeptic. He saw what I saw, so it wasn't my eyes! We just lay there, trying to put things in proper perspective, trying to describe to each other what we were looking at, and figured it was a light form of some sort. At least to me that was the best description. It had substance, but we could see clear through it. It was large. It went clear to the top of the door. It had human form, but I couldn't tell if it was a man or a woman. It was just a pulsating sort of light form. It almost covered the door, and we watched it for another hour and just whispered to each other." - Mary the Moveable Ghost and Other Hauntings of the Golden North Hotel

Later that summer, the reconstruction of the Palace Grand finally got underway. The old theater was completely torn down and an exact duplicate was built on the old foundations. Shortly after the stage was finished, several of the carpenters and painters reported seeing "a very pretty lady" walking out onto the stage. She watched the workers for a few minutes and then "disappeared into thin air!" When asked what she looked like, one of the carpenters said to me, "Well, she sure had pretty red hair!" - Queen of the Klondike, Kate Rockwell of the Palace Grand Theater

Al Downes of Whitehorse told me a story about a Frenchman who worked on John's claim. After a month or so, he finally gave up and left the mining operation at three in the morning without saying a word to anyone. Some said that he was scared witless by an apparition that flew through the air wrapped in an old blanket, and he was sure this must be John. For it was said that when John died, he was just wrapped in a blanket and buried only two feet down in the ground. No wonder the gravesite is covered with a large mound of rocks. - John Stockton, the Perpetual Prospector on Glacier Creek

May 29, 1974: I saw my first bear this year, today at 14.5 Mile. The brakeman said he saw a small bear about a week ago, but I accused him of not being able to tell a big porcupine from a bear. There are lots of "whistlers" (marmots) out now, and we see a great number of mountain goats every day n Mine Mountain, opposite Inspiration Point. We hit a rock at 19.5 Mile today. No damage. Backed up a few feet and got it back out of the way. Beautiful weather these past two days.

June 24, 1974: Nine years ago today, I was coming down the mountain with the "95" and "93" with about a 20-car train which included several cars of passengers. Just north of 8 Mile, I can remember seeing for an instant, as I rounded a curve, the track hanging with nothing under. A cement retaining wall and the fill behind had let go. I had no time to get scared, it happened so quick. At 18 miles per hour, the "95", when it hit the hanging track, went down and crashed into the rock wall on the downside from the fill. The "93" got loose and skidded rearend first, 1,000 feet, right into the river. Brakeman Gary Sapp rode it, and walked away unhurt. The "95" rolled - I don't know how many times - and stopped on a ledge about 250 feet below the track. There were three of us in the cab as Carlton Brown, chief Dispatcher, was riding with Fireman Jim Bell and myself. I can remember quite well being thrown around in the cab, and I have a perfect memory of crawling out the windshield. That couldn't be though, for when I saw the engine later, the glass was still in the windshield, even though there was extensive body damage elsewhere.

June 7-21, 1982: It almost made a tear come to my eyes when we came in sight of Skagway Depot to see several hundred people waiting to welcome the coming home of Steam Engine No. 73, and she did a bang up job of it!!! We took the "73" north yesterday, and it will return on July 5th for another two weeks stay. I'm enjoying it a great deal and some folks are referring to it as "J.D.'s toy."

Lynn Canal is now a foaming mass, and the gale increasing. Trees are being uprooted by the raging storm. Saw a large canoe with two people in it with a part of a sail up and heading for the Haines Mission shore, the same canoe and Indians, we think, that land at our camp farther down the night before last. And while we stood watching this canoe, she disappeared before reaching the shore. There is no doubt in our minds that the two occupants were drowned. - Juneau to Skagway by Canoe, October 1887

Arrived at Skagway Bay at 10 a.m. and ran our canoe up in the creek about a quarter of a mile, then put up our tent and camped at the foot of a little bluff on the beach, where a small creek comes down and joins the large creek on the right-hand side or east side of the bay. I have never forgotten my father's (Capt. William Moore) words to me. "Here," said he, "we will cast our future lots and try to hew out our fortune," as I struck my axe into our first tree. Later we reconnoitered up the valley a way and put up notice of location for one hundred sixty acres upland, and measured off six hundred feet for a wharf site and placed our notice on the same. We ran across numerous old deadfall traps for bear and other animals, a short distance up the valley. My father also said on this occasion: "I fully expect before many years to see a pack trail through this pass, followed by a wagon road, and I would not at all surprised to see a railroad through to the lakes." - Founding of Skagway and Moore's Wharf, October-November 1887

During all the time that had elapsed since Jim had left our sloop with his little canoe - over an hour - we had not heard a gunshot, and I noticed that Jim's clothes were badly torn in several places, and he had scratches on his hands and blood on them. I remarked on his condition, and he said that when the two bears sighted him, they at first made for the mountain. Not wishing to take any chances on firing at too long range, he followed them to the snowline and shot and killed the black bear first, and then shot and wounded a very large brown bear. I said, "Well, where is the brown bear?" "Downhill in the bushes, but not dead yet," Jim replied, pointing toward a clump of underbrush a hundred feet or so from the water's edge. Then he told us about his hand-to-hand fight with the big brown bear, and showed us the claw marks on his hands from ramming the gun into the bear's throat and striking him on the head with heavy stones, and so forth. - Skookum Jim's Encounter with Two Large Bears, 1891

The gold rush "Trail of '98" followed the river closely in many places, and the rotting corduroy of the Brackett Wagon Road still remained in 1917. The corduroy was caved in at places, but for one year it was a highway for gold seekers. The Brackett road served for the transit of men and pack horses in 1898. Prior to the building of the road, a crude trail was the only transportation link. Many horses perished. We found toppled grave markers and the bones and carcasses of horses everywhere.The noble creatures of the "Dead Horse Trail" struggled through jagged rocks and deep snow, carrying loads that were far too heavy and suffered from neglect, mistreatment and not enough to eat. the men had brought it upon themselves - the horses hadn't.

We had been told the stories of the Klondike Gold Rush and were interested in finding the ruins of old White Pass City at the foot of Dead Horse Gulch, the final ascent to the summit of White Pass. Located in the valley below the railroad about five miles up the line from Clifton (section house station), the old "city" was surrounded by underbrush. We cautiously waded through grass as tall as us to find it.

Everything that had been left behind at White Pass City was intact enough to investigate. we found deteriorated mattresses and pans and other utensils hanging on the rust nails. racks for drying meat still stood in the tall grasses, and we found the ruins of what must have been a dance floor. Everything that could have been discarded to cut down on pack loads had been left behind and perhaps forgotten.

This place spoke to us of people from the past, their dreams and their disappointments. Many had perished on the trail, and many had turned back - never reaching Lake Bennett to build their boats and float down the river to Dawson City and the Klondike gold fields. The hardships suffered by the prospectors must have been excruciating. Few actually made it to the Klondike, and fewer struck it rich.

One day in the summer of 1917, Grandfather found time away from his duties to visit old White Pass City with us. We were investigating the inside of an old cabin which was about ready to topple after nineteen years of weathering the changing seasons. He put his hand in the pocket of a mackinaw that was ready to fall to pieces and took out a poke of gold nuggets. - Exploring the Route of the Gold Seekers

As chief dispatcher of the White Pass and Yukon Route, Mulvihill had a telegraph line connect the rail depot on Broadway with his home at Seventh and Alaska. He worked for the railroad more than 40 years and served 16 terms as mayor of Skagway. "Mul" is buried near the railroad tracks, so he can hear the trains. His descendants continue to live in Skagway. - William and Nellie Mulvihill

Little is known of this "Soiled Dove," as the newspapers referred to Skagway's ladies of the evening. Ella was approximately 28 years old when she was strangled to death by "unknown parties" in her house on Holly Street. An interesting note is that although she died on May 28, 1898, an inquest into the causes of her death was not held until after Soapy Smith's death in July. - Ella Wilson

Frank Reid lived twelve days after being shot on July 8, 1898 with a Winchester .45 by Soapy Smith on the Juneau Co. Wharf. The bullet entered two inches above the groin and fractured the pelvic bone before exiting his spinal column. Reid was taken to Bishop Rowe hospital, where a council of the town's leading medical people tried to save his life. But the prognosis was not good, and Reid's final days were long and painful. Rev. John A. Sinclair, Skagway's Presbyterian minister, was Reid's companion during this time. According to the doctors, Reid's bullet killed Soapy instantly. Sinclair conducted Soapy's last rites at a gravesite just outside the cemetery boundary. Only two people were present. Reid read Sinclair's eulogy for Soapy in the newspaper and liked it so much that he almost memorized it. With Sinclair's help, Reid renewed his Christian faith and prepared for the end. To lift the spirits of the lonely man, Sinclair had his church choir visit and sing hymns. There were frequent visits to his bedside. The singing comforted Reid, and music filled his final days. - A Hero's Final Days